


Everything Goes Away

by FeathersMcStrange



Series: Bones In The Ground (Suits/Leverage) [1]
Category: Leverage, Suits (TV)
Genre: Angst, Bittersweet Ending, Complicated Relationships, Crossovers & Fandom Fusions, Don't Have To Know Both Shows, Don't Have to Know Canon, Dysfunctional Family, Everyone Has Issues, Everyone Needs A Hug, Family Drama, Family Feels, First Meetings, Gen, Harvey Cares, Hugs, Lies, Missing Persons, Questionable Timelines, Repeatedly Missing Persons, Reunions, Secrets, Serious Injuries, Swearing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-21
Updated: 2014-04-24
Packaged: 2018-01-20 04:54:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 11,414
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1497409
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FeathersMcStrange/pseuds/FeathersMcStrange
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>His name is Harvey Specter and he is a lawyer. His name is Harvey Specter and he is an older brother. His name is Harvey Specter, and he thinks the last living member of his family might be dead, because Marcus Specter has been missing for three years.</p><p>His name is Harvey Specter and there is someone in his office.</p><p>Or, the one where Harvey Specter isn't sure there's anything left of his little brother any more, Marcus Specter is actually a thief named Eliot with a penchant for vanishing acts, Donna Paulsen thinks she should probably call security, and Nate Ford decides that maybe some lawyers are kind of decent if you catch them under the right circumstances.</p><p>Of all the names and identities Eliot has had and given up over the years, losing Marcus Specter hurt the most.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [librariandragon](https://archiveofourown.org/users/librariandragon/gifts).



> Once upon a time a dorky writer dragon halfway through watching Leverage accidentally typed Eliot Spencer's last name incorrectly, ending up writing Eliot Specter. From there it was a short leap to 'what if crossover drabble' and then that spiraled wayyyyy out of control and here we are.
> 
> But I digress.
> 
> Basically my point is, the timeline makes no sense (if you really want a timeline just go with 'between when shit went to shit that time and that other time' for both shows so it's just nothing huge is going on, business as usual) and I'm pulling this all out of my ass and please enjoy.

Everything Goes Away

 

_We were tight knit boys, brothers in more than name_

_You would kill for me, and knew that I'd do the same_

_And it cut me sharp, hearing you'd gone away_

_But everything goes away, yeah everything goes away_

_But I'm gonna be here til I'm nothing but bones in the ground_

 

It was cold and dark outside. Wind whistled around the top floors of Pearson Specter, generating an eerie, muffled howling sound. The sun had long since gone down, leaving the soft overhead lights to illuminate the halls and offices. Hardly anyone remained in the building. Even the associates had gone home. Not Mike Ross or Harvey Specter, though. No, both the associate and the name senior partner were still somewhere in the high rise.

Donna Paulsen, legal secretary extraordinaire, wasn't sure where either of them was, but they were around there someplace. She was just returning from a trip to the ladies' room and was about to gather her things and beat a long overdue retreat home when she noticed it.

There was a man in Harvey's office.

Now it wasn't exactly like this was terribly unusual; people were in and out of that room all day long. The oddity of the situation came into play with the fact that Donna had not let him in and, to the very best of her considerable knowledge, neither had Harvey. She frowned, craning her neck to get a better view of him.

The man was laying on Harvey's couch, looking not so much like he were relaxing, but more as if he had passed out and someone had flung him haphazardly towards the nearest piece of furniture. His limbs sprawled in every which direction, and he looked sheer moments from toppling to the floor. His hair was dark and straight, flopping across his face and obscuring enough that she couldn't recognize him from this far away. She supposed he would have cut quite the imposing figure, seeming tall and impressively muscled, had he not looked like she could have knocked him right over with a feather. Something nagged at the back of Donna's mind, something was familiar about him. 

The thing that really set her on edge was how incredibly battered he looked. Blood stained his torn grey t-shirt, ugly black and blue contusions evident wherever skin was visible. He looked straight out of an action flick, and she was pretty sure a healthy person's chest wasn't supposed to hitch like that. As she was reaching for her phone to call security – she wasn't naïve enough to approach him herself – she froze as something made a crashing noise behind her. The intruder's accomplice?

When she turned around, phone clenched in what she later assumed had been an attempt at having a weapon on hand, Donna saw Harvey standing in the hallway by her desk. He had approached without her hearing him, and she mentally chided herself for spooking like that. It was in his place that a person would first be able to catch a glimpse of the man in the office, she noted.

Quickly locating the source of the crash – the shattered coffee cup that had just slipped right out of Harvey's fingers as if his hand had just forgotten how to hold onto something – Donna frowned and looked up at his face. Harvey looked for all the world as though he had seen a ghost. Face pale and hands shaking with barely visible tremors, he took a step forward, faltered, then stopped. Donna leant over her desk, trying to catch his eyes, which were wide and spooked, completely fixed on the hurt young man on his couch.

“I'm so sorry,” she said hurriedly, feeling very unsettled by the entire situation. “I have no idea how he got in there, I must have been away. Do you want me to call security up here?” The phone was halfway to her ear, her finger hovering over the button, before he answered. When he finally got his wits about him enough to answer, Harvey sounded shaken right to the core. Rattled.

“No. No that, uh. Won't be. No.”

Moving like a man in a daze, Harvey rounded Donna's desk. When he opened the door, the person on his couch sat bolt upright, wavering dangerously close to falling over, apparently not quite as out cold as Donna had thought he was. They stood locked in eye contact for what felt like forever, and the gnawing feeling that she knew this man from somewhere grew in her chest.

“Oh my god.”

Over the intercom Harvey's voice was hardly audible, low and in shock. It was in that moment that it clicked. She knew where she'd seen him before.

On Harvey's bedside table there was a photo, one she'd seen when she went to pick up a suit for him. It was of a younger Harvey, fresh out of undergrad, with his arm wrapped around a tall, dark haired teenage boy, both of them mid-laugh. The man standing in the office in front of her now was older, scruffier, badly beaten, and had a hardened look about him, but he was unmistakable. The boy in the photo, all grown up.

The stranger's mouth twitched into a hint of an empty, humorless smile. His lower lip was split in two places, and the change in expression opened one of them up again. “Hi, Harvey.”

Donna put a hand over her mouth. Marcus Specter. _Marcus Specter_ was standing there in Harvey's office, blood tricking down his chin, wavering on his feet, staring at his older brother with a look that was a mix of apprehension, defiance, and something raw that Donna couldn't put a name to.

In all her years of knowing Harvey, Donna had met Marcus in person exactly once. It was four months after their father had died when Harvey got the call. He had ran out of the office without even grabbing his coat. Hours later, after she managed to track down where he'd dashed off to, Donna walked into a room at New York General Hospital to find Harvey sitting beside a prone figure in a hospital bed. His shoulders were shaking hard with barely contained sobs, a lax, motionless hand clutched tight in his. She had walked over and put a hand on his shoulder. Harvey's head jerked up from where it had fallen beside Marcus's, and Donna didn't think she would ever be able to get the look he wore out of her mind. She'd never seen him look that afraid, fear and grief warring on a tear streaked face.

The wound his father's death left behind was still far, far too raw. Just four short months after he had watched his father put in the ground and his little brother was at death's door as well. It was more than even Harvey could handle.

That day was branded harshly into Donna's mind. The first time she had ever seen Marcus Specter, the fabled younger brother, blended with the worst breakdown she had seen a person have. Harvey had stayed at the hospital for as long as he could, rooted to his spot at Marcus's side, praying to god and anyone who was listening to not let him lose the last piece of his family he had left too. When he'd asked nobody had been able to tell him what had happened, an empty space in the situation where the circumstances that had led to Marcus's condition should be, just a stream of very scary words.

Concussion. Severe lacerations. Internal bleeding. Might not wake up. Prepare for the worst.

He'd been back at work four days later, just to straighten a few things out with the firm, and he'd been wearing lavender. Harvey never wore lavender, Donna could remember thinking as she sat at her desk and watched her boss and friend rummage around in his office with dark circles beneath his eyes and an air of hopelessness around him. That night while Harvey was asleep in the same chair she had first found him in, Marcus disappeared. Vanished from the hospital, the only marker that he had ever been there in the form of a panicking Harvey and a rumpled bed.

They never heard from him. Not a letter, not a phone call, not an email. Marcus evaporated from his room at NY General and simply wasn't seen again. Donna lost count of how many ways Harvey had tried to find him, but it had all fallen short. Wherever Marcus was, he didn't want to be found.

That was then.

Now, almost three years later, once more Donna found herself confronted with both of the Specter brothers in the same place. Except this time they were both conscious. Well. Conscious might have been stretching it a bit, if the way Marcus swayed dangerously, unsteady on his feet, was any indication. The legal secretary watched them for a second longer, eyeing the way Harvey's mouth moved as if he were trying to say something but couldn't find his voice, how Marcus looked ready to bolt at any moment.

She pressed a button on the intercom, switching it off. Whatever was about to happen, whatever conversation they were about to have, it was sure to dredge up memories and feelings that were too personal and private for her to pry into. Donna sat down at her desk and looked at her hands, twisting at her fingers as she tried to process what was happening.

 _Marcus Specter_ , she thought, shaking her head. _I'll be damned_.

“Marcus.” Harvey's whisper was saturated in disbelief.

“It's Eliot now.”

“What?” As if this day couldn't get any more confusing.

“I don't go by Marcus any more. Haven't in a while. Different name, different life. My name is Eliot.”

A thousand things raced through his head. Sixteen year old Marcus- _Eliot's_ first disappearing act and his return to Harvey's doorstep three months later. How changed he'd seemed and his refusal to tell anyone what had happened. Each of the four subsequent vanishings and how every one ended with his brother on his front porch, usually looking haggard, drawn, and damaged. The last time he left, resulting in that heart stopping phone call almost three years ago.

What did you say to a brother you hadn't seen, or even spoken to, in three years - who suddenly showed up in your office, bleeding all over your carpet? Presently Harvey was trying to decide between hugging him, shouting at him, calling an ambulance, or possibly attempting to do all of the above at once. In the end he took the most obvious course of action.

“What _happened_ to you?”

It was as much of a 'where did you go' as it was a 'where did you get those injuries'. Eliot seemed to pick up on this, looking down and away, not answering.

“Hey,” Harvey said quietly, stepping towards him and taking him by the shoulders, surveying him. “C'mon, talk to me.” He got his first good look at the true extent of how bad his visible injuries were when Eliot looked up from the floor. His split lip aside, the young man's face also bore a blackened eye, a scrape on his forehead, and a truly impressive bruise with a laceration at the center of it that extended from his cheekbone down his jawline. However it was the dark, heavy circle of bruising on his neck that really worried Harvey.

Somebody had put their hands around his little brother's neck and choked him – hard. Hard enough to leave thick finger marks on Eliot's skin. Harvey brushed a thumb along his jaw, tilting his brother's chin up so he could get a better look at it.

“ _God_ , kid.” The hot, furious feeling in Harvey's chest swelled as he stared at the marks. He wanted to hit someone. Preferably the person who had done this. In his preoccupation with the bruises, his thumb moving absently across Eliot's cheek, he didn't see the expression the young man now wore.

Eliot flinched slightly under Harvey's scrutiny. So much of this situation was utterly foreign to him. Years had passed since he had last been Marcus Specter, last been somebody's little brother. Harvey seemed to notice this reaction and frowned, looking up to make eye contact with him.

“Eliot?” The name sounded so strange in Harvey's voice. He imagined it had felt strange to say. “Are you alright? Do you need to sit down?”

That was the tipping point, the moment at which the whole situation became more than Eliot could take. Realizing just how much attention was focused on him was... startling. Not just attention, not idle curiosity, but concern, and affection; it didn't connect in his head that this was for _him_ , and when it did he froze up under the weight of it.

And it was _Harvey_. Harvey, standing in front of him with Eliot's face held in gentle hands. Gentle hands that were large, rough, and strong, and since when had those kind of hands ever been careful with him?

Hands like that had slammed him against walls, threw punches into his solar plexus, impacted against his jaw, wrapped around his neck and choked the life out of him. They weren't careful with him, and they certainly didn't cradle like that.

If he had realized what he was going to do before he did it, he would have stopped himself.

When Eliot's arms wrapped around him, clutching his older brother like a man drowning clutches a life preserver, Harvey made a startled noise, staggering a bit before regaining his balance. His voice was a buzz of static in Eliot's ears, incomprehensible and fuzzy. Probably a question. Probably 'are you okay'. Instead of responding he held on tighter, burying his face in the curve of the lawyer's neck and shoulder. A few moments later he felt Harvey reciprocate, embracing him with all the desperation of a person reassuring himself that someone he loved was alive and in one piece. The hand splayed flat on Eliot's back rose and fell with his breaths, and a part of him could have sworn that Harvey was counting them.

Counting the years it had been since Eliot's brother had last hugged him felt like twisting the knife lodged in his chest, the one that had been placed there by hearing the name 'Marcus' again after so long. Now he remembered why he had stayed so far away, why he'd never let himself entertain the idea of going back for longer than a moment. Because once he was here, once Harvey called him 'Marcus' and looked at him with equal parts concern, love, confusion, shock in his eyes Eliot knew it would be the hardest thing he had ever done to rip himself away from this again.

That would come later though, so for the moment he just dug his fingers into the back of Harvey's suit jacket, and if he was gripping so tightly that it hurt, well, Harvey didn't say anything. He was as calm a presence as Eliot remembered from his childhood, an immovable force that would, come hell or high water, stand between him and anything that bore him ill will. Nothing had ever been able to shake Harvey.

Or, no. That wasn't true. Eliot could remember coming home the first time, each of the first five times, and how Harvey had shouted and shaken him, ' _don't you ever fucking do that to me again, Marcus Eliot Specter, do you hear me?_ '. And of course he had done it again, and again, and again. Each time he left and each time he came back, the one universal constant being that he would eventually find himself once more on Harvey's front porch.

Their mother had long since left the family by the time he vanished for the first time, but even when he was still alive it was never their father Eliot came home to. It was Harvey, always Harvey. No matter how guilty he felt, how much hurt he could see in the older sibling's eyes, he still kept doing it.

People could say what they would about him, but Eliot Spencer had never once claimed to be a good person.

Before he could do something truly ridiculous, like start to cry, Eliot forced himself to let go, step back, and take a breath, looking anywhere but at Harvey's face. Harvey, for his part, was managing to keep his confusion under control impressively well. He caught Eliot by the arm when he faltered, his injuries seeming to finally catch up with him, helped him back over to the couch and sat him down on it. He then crossed to his desk, pressing the intercom button. Eliot watched with slightly dazed eyes as Harvey spoke to the secretary outside who had, for some reason, not gone home yet.

The hushed request sounded more like the background hum of a refrigerator than an actual string of comprehensible words. Eliot stared blankly at the wall across from him, feeling like he was floating partially between consciousness and the blackout he knew from experience was sure to be imminent. This concussion didn't feel as bad as some he'd sustained, that was for sure, but it was certainly not just a bump on the head either. A collection of moderately severe injuries piled on to top of each other could be just as detrimental as a single lethal one. And after what had happened-

Wait.

What _had_ happened?

Before he could dig any deeper into that line of thought, it came to Eliot's attention that Harvey was trying to talk to him.

“...liot? Eliot?”

Again, he was struck with how deeply jarring the name sounded in his brother's voice. “Hm?”

“Um, not that I'm not- not glad that you're here, but...” Harvey's voice was nervous, uncertain, and the notion that after all these years he could still shake the unshakable Harvey Specter was amusing to Eliot's addled mind. “Why _are_ you here? In New York?”

Wasn't that just the question of the hour.

“I, uh,” Eliot hedged, dropping his gaze and refusing to meet Harvey's eyes. This wasn't going to be a fun conversation. “I don't. I don't know.”

“What do you mean, you 'don't know'?”

“'S not complicated. I don't know how I got here.”

Harvey looked at him blankly. “You... don't know? How you got in the state of New York?” When Eliot simply nodded (regretting the motion shortly after), he gave the man on his couch a shrewd look. “Start at the beginning.”

And so he did, though admittedly leaving out large chunks for both of their sakes. Eliot talked in a rambling, concussed sort of way about working as a 'bodyguard' – more fabrication than truth, but then, Harvey didn't need to know that -, traveling around, getting involved with his crew.

That was the part he edited and censored the least. He glossed over the years between his first disappearance and meeting them, sparing his older brother every detail that could be spared without rousing suspicion. Then he got to the part where he had been contacted by a man who needed his stolen airplane plans... retrieved.

Harvey was pretty sure that Eliot wasn't aware of this, but when he reached this point, but observing the younger man's face he was met with the unforgettable way Eliot's expression changed when he told about the people he'd met on that job, the one that had changed everything. He talked about them with light in his eyes, unconscious little gestures accompanying his words as he spoke of Nate, Sophie, Hardison, and Parker, a crew of criminals that now fought for the other team and dragged him along on the ride. It was the first time, Harvey mused with an odd ache in his chest, that Eliot had truly seemed _happy_ in a very long time.

As he listened to the wild stories Eliot proudly spun of retributional thievery and ridiculous, Robin Hood-esque brands of con artistry, Harvey wondered if any of these people even knew his name.

Across the floor in the supply closet, Donna was digging through half opened boxes of staples trying to reach the seldom-used first aid kit that Harvey had requested she retrieve. It was here that Mike Ross found her, kicking at discarded file folders and gently extracting orphaned Post-It notes from her hair. He quirked an eyebrow and leant against the door, waiting for her to finish what she was doing. Donna emerged from the whirlwind of office supplies, triumphantly clutching the first aid kit, and was halfway out the door before she noticed Mike standing there.

“Hey, Donna,” Mike said, far too brightly she thought, for someone who had been at work for as long as he had.

“What do you want,” she asked, hurrying past him back towards Harvey's office. “I'm kind of busy at the moment.”

Mike noticed the first aid kit she clutched in her hands and grinned. “Yeah, seems like it. What, did Harvey bruise his ego or something?”

Donna rolled her eyes as Mike laughed at his own joke. She so did not have time for this.

“Actually, Mike-”

“Kidding! I was kidding. Where is Harvey anyway? I came by earlier and he wasn't in his office so I went to the file room he was looking in and I couldn't find him there either and then...”

Tuning out Mike Ross and his extensive babbling capabilities was a coping mechanism Donna had developed the first week he'd been working there, and she continued down the hallway with Mike doing his awkward little side shuffle walk after her, still running his mouth. A couple of times she made an attempt at interrupting and shutting him up, but she simply didn't have the energy – or the concentration – to spare to deal with him right then.

What finally quieted him, however momentarily, was when they rounded the corner and came into sight of Harvey's office and, more to the point, the people _inside_ the office.

“Donna,” Mike said slowly, not taking his eyes off the two men immersed in conversation, “why is there a guy in Harvey's office that looks like he could either be the Terminator or somebody who recently lost a fight with the Terminator.”

Oh boy. This should be a fun conversation.

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> See the nice thing about having something already written in it's entirety is that you can post it super fast. Wooo hoo.
> 
> So the swearing goes up a bit this chapter, just as a warning.
> 
> Anyway, part 3/3 goes up as soon as I have internet again.
> 
> Please do leave a review! Reading reviews makes me feel like I'm not actually shouting into the void here. Help your local fic writer feel appreciated!
> 
> Enjoy, darlings.

Harvey looked up as the door swung open and Donna walked in, followed shortly by a wide eyed associate.

"Mike, what are you doing here?" he asked, unconsciously shifting so that he was further between Eliot and the others.

"Looking for you, actually." Mike craned his neck to look around Harvey. "So you're Marcus."

Eliot winced. "No."

Before Mike had time to blurt out whatever tactless question he was surely about to ask, Harvey stood up, moving to the side.

"Mike, Donna, this is Eliot. My brother."

"But you said-" Seeing Harvey's expression, Donna stopped that sentence short. "Hi, Eliot. I'm Donna."

He gave her a tight lipped smile. "Hi."

Seeming to have finally gotten his wits about him, Mike jerked into movement the way he always did, suddenly and without warning. Watching him stop and start was disorienting. He held out his hand. "I'm Mike Ross, I'm your brother's associate." Eliot arched his eyebrow and shook the offered hand.

"Hang on, why were you looking for me this late? Did you find something useful?" Harvey asked, confused. The younger lawyer gave him a funny look.

"You're the one who told me you didn't want me biking home at 'whatever godforsaken hour of the night we end up leaving', I think is what you said. So I was just looking for a ride home."

"Oh. Okay. Uh. Donna, did you get what I asked?"

Reminded of the first aid kit she held in her hands, Donna looked up. "Oh, right. Yeah, here it is." Harvey took it and walked back over to the couch, opening it up. A packet of alcohol wipes were the first thing he grabbed, tilting Eliot's chin so he could dab at the dirt and blood smeared across his cheekbone. Mike noted from where he hovered awkwardly next to Donna that the strange man – Harvey's brother Marcus, supposedly notactually named Marcus – hardly flinched when the alcohol came in contact with the open wound on the side of his face.

Harvey worked in silence, concentrating wholly on the task at hand. If he were to be brutally honest with himself, he would be aware that this was mostly due to a strong desire to avoid having the imminent conversation in front of an audience. So he kept his mouth shut and cracked the ice pack from the kit, shaking it until it got cold enough, then gently pressing it to the heavy bruising on Eliot's neck.

After a while, Donna could restrain herself no longer. "What's going on here?" she asked, folding her arms and studying Harvey's face. Something about the whole situation felt off somehow. "What are you doing in New York, Eliot? You haven't been here in a while. Last time was almost three years ago if I remember correctly." Her voice was stiff and unfriendly.

Donna didn't know Marcus, Eliot, whoever he was, but she did know what had happened to Harvey the last time his path had crossed with theirs. She hadn't liked the man who came to work the week his brother vanished out of New York General Hospital. That man had been withdrawn and solemn, moody. Hurt. She didn't know what had happened with the Specter brothers in the past, only what it had done to her friend. And the shadow Eliot cast over Harvey's life was an ugly one.

"Yeah," Harvey said quietly, taking Eliot's hand and guiding it to the ice pack so he could hold it there on his own - wanting to feel useful, like he was doing something to care for Eliot. He stood up and walked back, sitting on the corner of his desk, hands folded neatly in his lap. "You told me a lot. More than I ever knew before. But you never did say how you got  _here_."

This was sure to be an uncomfortable, personal conversation, and though Donna had started this ball rolling, she and Mike hung back, unsure if they should draw any more attention to themselves by leaving. Donna was torn between not wanting to intrude on a private conversation and wanting to finally understand what was going on here. For his part, Mike just wanted a ride home. They stayed silent while Eliot shrugged helplessly, cringing when he ended up jostling the ice pack he held against his neck.

"I told you already, I don't know."

Harvey narrowed his eyes in concern and suspicion. "Explain."

"I just. Woke up here. The last thing I remember is finishing a job, and then I woke up in some park with a gap in my memory, bleeding all over the place, feelin' like I'd gone ten rounds with a brick wall, and no way to contact my team."

Studying Eliot's face, Harvey found no hint of deceit there. He was telling the truth.

"You don't know anything?" Harvey asked. "Nothing at all?"

"I know a lot of things, Harv, but the how, who, and why of me bein' here is not one of them."

The dry humor, in the drawling voice that had retained the country accent long gone from Harvey's own speech, sent Harvey back to a warm July night with fireworks and popcorn, 'I know a lot of things, Harv, but how you managed to piss her off that bad is not one of them'. It drove the breath from his lungs. Harvey swallowed hard and curled his hand into a fist in his lap. It was a moment before he could find the presence of mind to respond. "So how'd you get here?"

"We've been over th-"

"No," Harvey corrected. "I should have been more specific, I meant how did you get  _here_ , as in here in this building, in this office. How did you know where to go? How did you know which was  _my_  office?"

"You mean aside from the lettering on the door reading  _'Harvey Specter'_?"

Mike had to stifle a snicker behind a hand, drawing a glare from Harvey. "Sorry."

Giving him a dirty look, Harvey, the thought _yes,_ _exactly that's what I need, both of them teaming up on me_  flitting through his mind, motioned for Eliot to go on.

"As soon as I was able to figure out what city I was in, I found the nearest map, and came straight here." Eliot looked away at this point, refusing to meet Harvey's eyes. He instead gazed absently out the window, through his own reflection to the New York skyline outside. "Even if you didn't know where I was," he said, in a voice that was quiet and rough, prompting Donna and Mike to lean closer to hear him, "I knew where you were. I've been... Keeping an eye on you. The whole time. Followed your career. Kept tabs. Watched out for you."

The whole thing felt so wrong, Harvey thought as he looked at the man his baby brother had turned into without him.  _That's not how it's supposed to be, Marcus_ , he wanted to shout, to grab his brother's shoulders and shake him, hard.  _I'm supposed to be the one watching out for you, not the other god damn way around._

But he'd fucked that job right up, hadn't he, and now he had to deal with the consequences. Fantastic, this was just. Just  _fantastic_. Pushing his hands over his face and through his hair, Harvey closed his eyes and took a deep breath.

"So you came here."

"There was nothing else I could do, nowhere else I could go. I didn't know what to do so I... I came to find you."

At least that much had stayed the same. No matter how far he wandered, no matter what went down, at least he knew that the instinct that guided Marcus home was still working. When in doubt - hurting, confused, and alone in a strange place with no idea how he'd gotten there, feeling the epitome of vulnerable - Marcus had gone right to Harvey.

Eliot.

His name was  _Eliot_.

Fuck.

Harvey nodded, swallowing down the knot in his throat. "Okay. First priority is getting you somewhere that you can rest. You're not looking so great there, buddy." He pretended he didn't see the slight recoil at the familiar, affectionate moniker.

"You sound like Nate," said Eliot after a moment, an odd look playing across his battered face. Not knowing how to respond to that, Harvey stood, swiping his palms across his pant legs, smoothing creases from his jacket. There was blood on that jacket now, from when Eliot had hugged him, but he ignored that. Turning around, he surveyed Donna and Mike.

"Alright," he said. "Donna, you're good to go?"

"Yeah," she answered, carefully watching his features. She shot a calculating look at Eliot, as if judging whether leaving her boys alone with him would result in anything too catastrophic. After a second or two she seemed to judge that they would be okay for the night, and straightened. "Yeah. Okay. I'll be on my way then." Donna sent one last look around the room before huffing out a breath and turning to go, collecting her purse from her desk on her way out.

One down, one to go.

"Are you ready?" Harvey asked Mike, who started at the question being directed at him.

"Hm? Oh, yeah, I am. Sure you don't want me to just bike home? I..." I don't want to get in the middle of your family drama, and your brother scares me. "I don't want to get in the way."

"You're not in the way. You're not safe biking home this time of night," Harvey dismissed, and Mike raised an eyebrow. Oh yeah, Harvey was so out of it right now, if he had basically just blatantly admitted to concern for Mike's personal well-being. He chalked it up to Harvey being nostalgic and unexpectedly flung right into the middle of 'big brother mode', and figured this was as good a time as any to keep his mouth shut and just accept it. Not having to bike home at dark o'clock at night was a nice plus.

Turning back to Eliot, Harvey considered the best way to go about doing this.

"Here," he said, holding out his hand for the icepack, putting it back in the first aid kit, which he left on his desk to deal with at a later date. "Ready?"

"Yeah," Eliot replied tiredly. He was as ready as he was going to be.

"Alright. Come here."

Eliot eyed Harvey's outstretched hand, then accepted it.

Watching the two of them interact was rather how Mike imagined being thrown into the Twilight Zone would feel. Harvey and gentleness were never a pair of concepts that had intersected logically in his mind, and yet there was something infinitely cautious and full of care in the way he pulled Eliot to his feet, steadying him when he swayed. Mike watched silently as Harvey drew Eliot's arm around his shoulders, wrapping his own arm around his brother's waist.

It took Eliot a moment longer to accept the help and lean against Harvey, allowing him to take a lot of the strain from his damaged body. Seeing that neither of them was in a position to open the office door, Mike sprang into action, skirting around them to get the door. He held it open, then let it fall closed once they were through, following after the two of them towards the elevator.

Pearson Specter was quiet and empty, rather eerie after hours, when even the associates had gone home. It felt like a ghost town. Everything about his current situation set Mike on edge, and he wished offhandedly that he had gone home when it was still light out, ridden his bike back to his apartment and never known anything about anyone named Marcus or Eliot or whoever he was. But he hadn't, and now he was stuck in an elevator with someone he was half sure was probably in the mob or something and his boss/mentor/closest-thing-to-a-best-friend, taking the too slow decent to the first floor.

The car ride back home was just as awkward as the elevator trip had been, if not even more so. Mike sat in the back seat, looking from a blank faced Harvey in the driver's seat, to a half conscious Eliot in the passenger's seat. He didn't like the look of how Eliot's head had dropped against the window the moment he'd sat down and closed the door, and he was still debating suggesting a detour to the nearest emergency room when Harvey pulled up outside of his building.

"It was, uh, nice to meet you," Mike said quickly, sure Eliot either hadn't heard him or was too out of it to care. He waved to Harvey, who then pealed away from the sidewalk, leaving Mike standing there. Resolving to check in with Donna at work the next day and see how Harvey was doing, Mike headed inside and went to bed, planning to sleep soundly through the night.

Harvey was not so lucky.

The trek from the car up to his apartment woke Eliot up sufficiently that, while he was still as fuzzy as a moderately severe concussion merited, he was now significantly more alert and therefore more closed off. Harvey helped Eliot to his couch, then stood in front of him, wondering why he was trying so hard to avoid eye contact.

There was silence in the apartment as Harvey looked at Eliot and pointedly looked everywhere but at Harvey. After agonizing moments that felt more like hours, Harvey spoke. His voice was low and accusing, voicing the question that had been pushing to get out from the moment he saw Eliot in his office that night.

"Why did you leave?"

Eliot finally looked at him, still and silent. No answer.

"Please, help me wrap my head around why you did this. I don't  _understand_ , Marcus."

Silence, this time as frigid and stiff as Eliot's posture.

"You were all I had left, you know that?"

Still nothing.

"Dad  _died_."

He waited a few seconds longer, and when there was  _still_  no answer, Harvey huffed, straightened to his full height and folding his arms. Well, if that was the way Eliot wanted to do it, fine. No more pulling punches. Harvey took a deep breath and let loose every word that had been hovering in his mind since the seventh time he had lost his brother all over again.

"Our father  _died_  and you blow into town for all of five minutes, peek in on the funeral, and then disappear again for another four months at which point I get a phone call that you are  _dying_  in an ICU ten minutes away. Then you vanished out of the hospital – who  _does that_ , Marcus? - and I'm left wondering what the hell happened to you  _three fucking years later_." He stopped for a second, breathing hard. Eliot just looked at him. "God, there's a part of me that  _hates_  you for that."

Eliot snorted, shaking his head, finally reacting. But what he said was the last thing Harvey was expecting out of him.

"You and me both."

The dry statement left Harvey thrown, gaping at him in shock. How did you even react to something like that? He didn't know, so he pretended it hadn't happened, pushing that emotion down in favor of one he knew how to deal with.

Fury.

"Tell me why you did this or I swear to god I'm going to-"

"What?" The word was a sharp and harsh. "You're going to  _what_ , Harvey? I've had more guns pointed at my head in a week than you've ever seen in your life. Threatening me is going to get you  _nowhere_." There was no hint of exaggeration in his eyes, just defensive anger.

Silence reigned once more, while Harvey searched for anything he could say in response to that, and it was deafening.

"It's been three years, Marcus," he said finally, circling back to the same point from before, the part of this he had the hardest time coping with. "Three  _goddamn_  years. And not once, not  _once_ , did you call, or email, or write, or send me a fucking  _carrier pigeon_ , and say 'Oh by the way Harvey, I'm not lying murdered in some dingy back alley somewhere'. Do you know how long I spent looking for you? How hard I tried to find you?  _Three. Years._  Thirty six months. Three birthdays, three Christmases, three anniversaries of  _our father's death._  Mark, you-"

"That is  _not_  my name." The look on Eliot's face was dangerous, daring Harvey to say another word. And of course, never being one to back down from a challenge, Harvey squared his shoulders, feeling a sharp rush of disbelieving outrage at his brother.

"What happened with that, anyway? Why did you change it? Did you just decide one day 'hey you know what, I'm sick of being Marcus Specter, I'm just gonna drop off the face of the fucking planet and change my name and leave my older brother thinking I've probably got my brains blown out in some godforsaken corner of the earth, that sounds  _awesome_ '."

"You know what, you win. Yes. Yes I  _did_. I got sick of being Marcus Specter because Marcus Specter was a  _LIE_."

Harvey stared at him in disbelief. "What part of that was a lie? Tell me, what part of who you are was a lie,  _Eliot_."

This time the name, spat from between clenched teeth, didn't sound like the prayer it had been in Harvey's office.

This time that name, spoken in a voice from a life he'd slashed his ties with years ago, sounded like a vicious curse.

They stared at each other in an apartment so quiet you could have heard a feather drop. Lawyer and thief. Older brother and younger brother. Harvey and Eliot. Specter and Spencer.

"What do you want from me, Harvey?" Eliot finally asked, shoulders slumping and looking away. It was like in one fell swoop all of the fight had drained out of him, the events of the past few days catching up with him.

"What do I- unbelievable. You are  _unbelievable_." Harvey shook his head slowly, gaze still fixed on Eliot's now hunched form. "I just want to understand  _why_. Why won't you just explain this to me? What was so hard about your life? What did I do that was so horrible you had to leave?"

"You didn't do anything." It was the quickest Eliot had responded to anything all night. He broke eye contact, blinking his burning eyes and pretending the aching knot in his throat was due to the beating he'd taken. "I swear to you, Harvey, if I thought for one minute that you would understand or believe me, I would tell you everything. But that... This," Eliot looked around the room, at the apartment and briefly glancing to Harvey, "isn't part of that."

"It could be." The words were soft and toneless. An olive branch.

One that, no matter how deeply, painfully he wanted to, Eliot couldn't take. "You don't want that. Neither of us want that. Besides, I..." Eliot trailed off, trying to gather his wits as the room blurred momentarily around him. "I'm not part of that anymore. What happened happened and I would tell you about it if I thought it wouldn't completely ruin any of this that we have left, but I'm out. It's over. I'm with a crew now, and we might technically just be a bunch of thieves and liars, but we're doing good things for good people. So just. Trust me, okay? Things happened, and I couldn't be Marcus Specter any more. I just couldn't. But I'm okay now."

Not sure how true he believed that statement to be (everything about his long missing brother screamed  _I'm not okay_ ), he swallowed, briefly closed his eyes, and breathed slowly. Deciding that there was only one option he could take, Harvey made a decision.

"Your team."

Eliot looked over at him, thrown by a combination of the sudden topic change and the cloud of pain and confusion slowly settling over him the longer he sat on Harvey's couch. "Yeah, what about them?"

"How do I get in contact with them?" Seeing Eliot's narrowed, confused eyes, Harvey glanced briefly away. "Look, Marcus. Eliot. Sorry. Look, the point is whatever is going on with you, whatever happened that made you think you had to leave, I know that what you've found with these people is... It sounds good. They sound good for you. And I... I just." Harvey wasn't comfortable with this type of conversation, he never had been. But it had to get out there in the open. Eliot had to know that whatever choices he made, whatever kind of life he had now, Harvey would always lo-

Anyway.

"It sounds good, and I'm glad, and- How do I find them?"

Eliot blew out a slow breath. "Usually you don't find them, they find you. Why?"

"I'm going to call them to come and get you."

"What?" The question was sharp and shocked.

"You heard me. I don't know how to help you, Eliot." Harvey kept a close eye on the younger man, watched how his head bowed and his eyes looked away. "But it sounds like they might be able to. From what you told me, stuff like finding out who did this to you – cause I highly doubt you managed to do this on your own – it's exactly what your team does. They can help you better than I can, and so I'm going to find them."

"Alright," sighed Eliot. He blinked slowly, looking around. It seemed to take him a second to remember where he was. "I don't. Everything's weird and fuzzy and I don't... What?"

"Your team, Eliot. How can I find them?"

"Oh. Right, um. We got a set of new numbers recently so I don't. I can't contact them directly. So uh. Good luck finding them, but. What you're looking for is an organization called Leverage Inc. - that was Hardison's idea, I don't know where he got it. He has weird ideas. I don't understand how his mind works... Sorry, I. Um. Leverage, right. The guy I mentioned before. Nate. Nathan Ford. He's the one you want."

Nodding and moving to stand, Harvey was about to head for his computer when Eliot caught his sleeve. He turned to look back, tilting his head to try and get a better look at Eliot's face. It was hard enough to read his expressions when he wasn't half turned away.

"What?" he asked apprehensively.

"I... Thanks, Harvey."

"Of course." Harvey paused for a moment, considering his words. "I'm always going to try and do what's best for you, kid, you know that. And if that means getting you back to the people who actually can help you, then okay. That's what I'll do." He looked at Eliot, who had an odd expression on his face. Frowning, Harvey touched his shoulder, trying to get his attention.

"Are you okay? What is it?"

"I didn't know what to do," Eliot said in a voice that was small and unsteady. His condition seemed to have taken a nosedive for the worse, and Harvey was glad he'd gotten the information he needed before this had happened.

"It's okay."

The longer he was awake, the less coherent Eliot was becoming, losing his composure and his control to the fog of the concussion and exhaustion pulling at him.

"I didn't have anywhere else to go." By now all trace of their previous argument had evaporated, disappeared into the air, for the moment forgotten.

"I know, Eliot. It's okay. It's  _okay_."

The grip on his sleeve tightened. "Harvey."

"Yeah. Yeah, it's me." Harvey's chest constricted tightly. "I'm right here. You're safe. Just go to sleep. All of this is going to be a lot better when you wake up, trust me." He didn't leave until Eliot's unsteady, glassy eyes had closed and his breathing had slowed to a steady sleeping rhythm.

Time to hunt down Nathan Ford.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright here we are, friends. The last leg of the journey. This fic was a fun one to write, but also pretty much stretched me to the breaking point in 'screaming in frustration land' oops. Anyway. I'm planning on making a couple more oneshots or something in this universe, drop me a line if you think it's a good idea. I can be reached here, and also on tumblr at aromanticgcallen.

Harvey was pretty sure that Mike didn't appreciate him calling at this time of night, but there was really nobody else he could think to call. Having an associate with an eidetic memory did have it's uses, and he was sure that if anybody had heard of 'Leverage, Inc' or of Nathan Ford, it would be Mike Ross.

“Yeah, I think I've heard that name somewhere. Why? Something to do with your brother?”

“Yeah,” Harvey replied. Regrettably, that self same associate also had a habit for poking his nose into literally everything. “What can you find me on him?”

“Give me a minute, some of us aren't vampires who don't need sleep.”

It was a weak shot, but given the hour and the favor Mike was doing him, Harvey was willing to let it slide. There was the sound of a computer booting up on the other end, then the clicking of keys. What was actually a few minutes later, Mike spoke up again.

“Alright, so I think I've got your guy.” There were a few more keystrokes, and Mike cleared his throat before continuing. “Nathan Ford. Ex-insurance agent for a company called IYS, looks like he's been brought up on several charges, escaped prison one time, seems to be head of some group of con artists. Theft ring? I don't know, there's a lot of speculation about them. Nobody's really got any idea what they're really about, so. Anyway, known associates. There's Eliot Spencer – hey, think that's your Eliot? There's a picture here, hang on. Yeah, it's him. Wow, he looks bad. I mean like, worse than he-”

“Mike, focus,” Harvey interrupted, pinching the bridge of his nose with a thumb and forefinger. He didn't have the energy to deal with the babbling right now.

“Right. Sorry. Okay, known associates, Eliot Spencer, then there's Sophie Devereaux, who there's a death certificate for that wasn't as permanent as those usually are. Next we've got a guy named Alec Hardison, who's like, smarter than anyone I've ever met in my life, this dude's hacked everything from freakin Facebook to. Wow. To the _CIA_. And the last one, a theif, is Parker.”

“Parker what?”

Mike laughed through the phone. “No, that's it. No last name. First name. Whatever. It's just that, it's Parker. Don't have much on her, she's apparently a thief or something. Wanted all over the place. Paintings. Jewelry. Stuff like that.”

“Got a number for Ford?” The string of digits came quickly, Harvey scribbling them on a notepad on his desk, along with an addendum that it 'wasn't easy to find', as Nathan Ford swapped numbers within the last couple of days. “Great. Thanks.”

“What the hell is going on here, Harvey?”

“I wish I knew.” With that, Harvey hung up. Later he would think that it was probably melodramatic and a bit rude, but at that point he was too caught up in trying to find Ford in time to get him there by the following day to bother with being polite. Hopefully this team Eliot had fallen in with was as solid as Harvey got the impression they were. Hopefully they gave enough of a damn about him to fly out and get him.

As he stood in the doorway, looking out into the living room where Eliot still slept, a ringing phone pressed to his ear, Harvey found himself second guessing the decision to find this crew of thieves, liars, and cons and bring them to get a brother he didn't know how to take care of anymore. He wondered if they knew, if indeed maybe Eliot was just disposable to them, strength and power they could easily replace. Harvey had just thought himself into a corner, sure that it was a mistake and that nobody would answer, and if they did they wouldn't care as much as Eliot needed them to, when the ringing stopped and someone picked up.

Right off the bat, it was clear that he had been wrong. The man who answered's voice was loud and angry, harsh with an undertone of worried panic.

“Whatever you want, we can get it. Whatever it is you're going to ask for, it's yours. But I swear if you have hurt him in any way, there won't be a corner of the universe that you can hide in.”

“Nathan Ford?” Harvey asked cautiously. There was a pause on the other end.

“You know who I am. Stop playing games and tell me what you want in exchange for Eliot.”

When it dawned on him what Ford thought was the reason for his calling, Harvey's eyes bugged, and he was barely able to contain a bark of laughter. “What? No. No, I don't want anything 'in exchange for' him. Mr. Ford, I think we've had a miscommunication.”

“You've abducted one of my people, I don't think there's much room for interpretation there.” Ford sounded strained and hostile. Even though the hostility was being directed full force at him, Harvey couldn't help but be glad. All signs pointed to his worries being unfounded. This wasn't the way a person reacted when someone they didn't give a damn about went missing.

“I think I should probably introduce myself,” Harvey said carefully, not wanting to screw this conversation up. “My name is Harvey Specter, and M- Uh, Eliot. Eliot Spencer is my brother.”

Silence for a few beats, before Ford's voice sounded again. “You're lying. Eliot doesn't have a brother.”

“Well, when I knew him his name was Marcus Specter. But no. I'm not lying. He's my brother.”

“Okay,” came the slow response. “Let's say I believe you. You're Eliot's brother. What do you want from me?”

Harvey sighed, leaning against the door frame and watching Eliot, who hadn't stirred once since he had fallen asleep. “I want you to come and get him.”

“Excuse me?”

“Something's happened. And before you accuse me of anything again, I don't know what it was, or who did it. But Eliot's hurt. Pretty badly. He's currently passed out in my living room. And so I called you, like I said, to come and retrieve him. There's no way in hell I am letting him travel on his own, not like this.”

“How did he get there?” Ford asked, and Harvey noted that he sounded significantly less like he wanted to rip Harvey's throat out than he did a minute ago. A definite improvement on the situation.

“I don't know. I asked him and he doesn't remember. Just woke up in some park, then tracked me down. Impressive, given his current state.”

“That's Eliot alright. Kid could take on a hurricane and come up swinging.” The voice on the other end of the phone had a fond, rueful tinge to it. Harvey decided that, so far, he tentatively approved of Ford.

“So can you do it?”

“Why? If you're his brother why not just keep him there with you, if he's that badly hurt?”

Harvey froze, fingers clenching around the phone. He hadn't looked away the entire time, eyes still tracking the rise and fall of Eliot's chest. The history of his family and the turmoil there was not something he wanted to get into with a stranger over the phone, no matter how well that stranger knew his brother. He did not want to admit to Nathan Ford that he didn't have a clue how to take care of his own little brother any more, didn't know how to be what Eliot needed.

If _Marcus_ had turned up on his front porch he would have never considered calling someone else, taking it entirely upon himself to fuss and make sure that he was okay. But Eliot... He didn't know the first thing he was supposed to do with Eliot. So he did what he did best. He avoided having an uncomfortable conversation.

“The question here, Mr. Ford, is will you come and get Eliot, not why I am asking you to.”

“I'll be there in the morning.” Just as Harvey was about to hang up the phone, Ford said something else. “And it's Nate.”

“What?”

“My name. It's Nate.” The line went dead.

Closing the phone with fingers that moved as in dazed, Harvey walked softly back into the living room. He stood beside the couch, looked down at his brother's sleeping face, and for the first time since he had rounded the corner and found Eliot in his office, the young man lying in front of him looked like the brother he knew. Harvey pressed a hand to his mouth and closed his eyes tight shut, fighting against the choking feeling in his throat. An overpowering sense of nostalgia flowed over him, and he remembered.

He remembered the boy his brother had been, back when he was Marcus Specter, the boy who loved too much and too deep for his own damn good, and wondered if any part of that boy was left alive in Eliot Spencer.

Opening his eyes, Harvey gently touched Eliot's head, letting his hand rest for a moment on his hair, before withdrawing it, leaving nothing but the scorched feeling in his fingertips to prove the contact had ever happened.

“Sleep tight, kiddo. They're coming for you,” he said in a strangled whisper, then walked swiftly for his bedroom. Suddenly, Harvey felt like he couldn't stay in that room one second longer. He had to get away. The night ticked on and on, the numbers of his softly illuminated clock flicking past. There was no sleep for him to find, leaving him to fall back on an old standby, from the days of Eliot's first disappearance at sixteen years old.

Harvey closed his eyes, buried his face in his pillow, every muscle in his body tight, and pretended.

It felt like ages before morning rolled around and the 'flight landed. be there soon.' message pinged to light on his phone screen. The sun hadn't yet rose when Harvey climbed stiffly out of bed, feeling like he hadn't slept in ages. He walked slowly out of the room, half afraid to look towards the couch Eliot had been sleeping on for fear of finding it empty and cold. Just like in the ICU the last time Harvey had seen him. Luck was on his side this time, however, as when he looked apprehensively towards the center of the room there Eliot was. His face was creased in a small frown, and he twitched occasionally. A dream.

 _A nightmare_ , Harvey corrected himself, crossing the room quickly and carefully shaking him.

“Wake up. C'mon, buddy, it's time to get up. They'll be here soon.” Faster then he had ever seen anyone wake up before, Eliot's eyes snapped open and he jerked against Harvey's hands, fighting him. It took him a moment to realize who it was stranding over him and stop struggling.

“Harvey?” he asked in a voice heavy with confusion. He seemed to be having trouble remembering the events of the previous night.

“Yeah, it's me,” said Harvey, carefully pulling Eliot into a sitting position, and then dropping down beside him on the couch. “Do you remember what happened?”

Eliot blinked slowly, looking around the apartment he had woken up in. Still feeling the effects of the concussion, he was having a difficult time recalling any specific memories, much less ones that had happened while he was half lost inside a stupor of confusion. Bit by bit the night's progression came back to him, and he winced as he thought of the truly embarrassing way he had lost control of himself and his carefully maintained image of remaining aloof and unaffected.

“Yeah,” he admitted, rubbing one hand over his eyes. “I remember.”

“Good,” sighed Harvey, relieved. He laid a palm against the back of Eliot's shoulder, trying to get his attention. “Think you're up to walking?”

The longer he was awake, the more alert and capable Eliot felt. “Yeah I can do that.”

“Cause there are some people who are gonna be downstairs in just a minute or so who are very anxious to see you.”

Frowning and unsure of what was going on, Eliot allowed Harvey to help him to his feet, strong hands steadying him when he swayed momentarily. The decent down to the wide strip of concrete in front of Harvey's building was annoyingly slow. Several times they stopped to let Eliot catch his breath. Even though they rode the elevator, it still took much longer then normal to reach the ground floor. By the time they got outside, a nondescript black car was pulling up along the sidewalk. Eliot's eyes widened as he recognized the brunette woman in the passenger's seat.

“Sophie? You...” he turned to Harvey, incredulous. “You called them.”

“I said I would. I called and they came.”Harvey arched an eyebrow at the nearly full car. “Course, I wasn't exactly expecting _all_ of them to show up.”

“You don't know them like I do,” Eliot said, a small, relieved smile transforming his face. He turned back to the car and laughed as the back door flung open before the car had rolled all the way to a stop, a pair of young adults piling out of it. Harvey stepped back, watching from a distance as they made straight for his brother with a delighted shout of 'there he is!' from the girl.

She reached him first, skidding to a stop in front of him and glared up at him for a moment, smacking him lightly on the shoulder.

“What the _hell_ do you think you're doing, Eliot? You scared the _shit_ out of us,” she yelled. Eliot shrugged sheepishly.

“Sorry?”

Apparently he was forgiven, because the next thing Harvey knew she had flung her arms around Eliot's waist and rested her head against his chest.

Eliot responded by draping one arm across her shoulders, extending the other one out slightly. Harvey didn't have time to wonder why, as the tall young man who had followed the blonde girl out of the back seat reached his teammates a moment later. He didn't even bother with glaring or chastising, just wordlessly walked straight up to Eliot and the girl, folding himself easily under the outstretched arm and into what was now a three way embrace. From his vantage point Harvey could see his fingers digging into the back of Eliot's shirt. For his part, Eliot held them both close, breathing deeply and letting himself relax for the first time since he'd woken up alone in that park.

In his preoccupation with his brother and the two newcomers, Harvey had completely missed the approach of the other two, another male and female duo, significantly older than the trio still standing together on the sidewalk. The woman, who Eliot had pointed out as 'Sophie' when the car pulled up, had long brown hair and a deeply relieved look on her face, like an anvil had been lifted off her shoulders. The man beside her also had dark hair, though his expression as he watched Eliot and the other two was less easy to decipher. There was relief, of course, but also apprehension, as well as an undercurrent of anger.

Harvey watched from a safe distance as the older pair waited patiently for Eliot to be released before each taking a turn pulling him into their arms, hugging him tightly. The chatter began then, the older woman tilting Eliot's face this way and that, getting a look at the damage, while the young man and the blonde girl talked excitedly over each other, still hovering close to Eliot's side. They seemed reluctant to take their eyes off him, for fear that the moment they turned away, he would be gone again.

The older man broke off from the group, a hand lingering warmly on the back of Eliot's neck for a moment before he walked over to Harvey.

“You must be Harvey Specter,” he said in a voice that Harvey recognized instantly, holding out his hand. The lawyer shook it, studying the man in front of him.

“Nate. Nice to actually meet you.”

“Likewise.”

There then stretched an uncomfortable silence as both men sized each other up, each trying to get as good a read on the other as possible.

“I wish I could say Eliot's told me a lot about you,” Harvey said finally, breaking the silence.

“Yeah, I wish I could say the same,” replied Nate evenly. What he said next caught Harvey off guard. “That said, I do know a thing or two about you, Harvey Specter, senior name partner at Pearson Specter law firm. Father died over three years ago, one sibling, a younger brother named Marcus. Recently hired a young man named Michael Ross, interestingly enough without a degree.”

Harvey froze. Nate gazed impassively back at him.

“What do you want from me?” Harvey asked, refusing to back down from the man's thousand yard stare.

“I want you to know that if you've had anything to do with this at all, if you've done anything to him, I will find out. And if I do, I know who you are and where you live and how to ruin you.”

Oh yeah. Harvey definitely liked this guy.

“Believe me, Nate, there is nobody on this sidewalk who has anything but Eliot's wellbeing at top priority.”Considering his next words carefully, it was a moment or two before Harvey spoke again. “I want to thank you, sincerely, for coming out here to get him.”

“Of course.” Nate spared a glance backwards to where Sophie, Eliot, and the two youngest were still all talking at once, trying to get their point across over the others. “And I... I understand how complicated it can be. Family. Just know that your brother is in very good hands. We've got his back. You've got nothing to worry about.”

“I certainly hope you're telling me the truth.” Now it was Harvey's turn to... _impress upon_ him exactly what it would mean if Nate didn't live up to his word. “And you may know everything about me, but remember that I found you in less than an hour, and I can do it again. I am at the top of one of the biggest sharks in New York City, and my connections are numerous and deep. If I hear that he's been hurt and you let it happen, I will find you, and I will _bury_ you.”

“So we understand each other then?” Nate's voice had a hit of humor in it.

“I believe we do.”

Nate then turned to the others, motioning them over. Eliot leant against the young man in the bright yellow scarf, the girl supporting his other arm, clearly worn out from the enthusiastic greetings. “Guys, this is Harvey Specter, the man I spoke to on the phone last night.”

“Eliot's brother,” Sophie said, extending her hand. “Sophie Devereaux. Pleasure.”

Harvey hummed in response, giving her a tight lipped smile and shaking her hand.

“You don't _look_ like Eliot,”the blonde announced skeptically, wincing under the glare she got in response.

“Parker, play nice,” Eliot said quietly, and she shrugged.

“He doesn't!” When Eliot's glare only continued, she sighed. “Hi, Harvey.”

Unsure how he was supposed to respond to that, Harvey was glad when the final group member offered a handshake and an introduction.

“Alec Hardison,” he said simply.

“Harvey Specter,” Harvey responded, more out of automatic response than any impression that Alec didn't already know his name.

“Look,” interrupted Nate, “we really should get going. I booked our return flight already, it leaves in about an hour. I hate to cut this little introduction short, but we really do have to go.” He looked to Harvey briefly. “Thanks. We've got it from here.”He received a nod in return and, noting Harvey's pointed look towards Eliot, Nate began to herd the others back towards the car, leaving Harvey and Eliot standing alone.

“They seem like good people,” Harvey said. Eliot looked at the ground, nodding.

“They are. Better than I deserve, but life's not fair.”

“Hey.” Tapping Eliot's chin, Harvey met his eyes. “None of that, okay? Not right now. Just. I want you to promise me something, kiddo.”

“What?”

“Don't do that to me again.” It was a plea. A prayer. “Don't just drop off the planet like that again. I won't pretend to understand any of this, and I won't ask you to drop in on weekends or whatever. All I'm asking is that you pick up the phone sometimes. Let me know that you're okay. Tell me if you're going to be in town, we can have coffee or something. Whatever you want. Just. Can you promise me you won't disappear again?”

Harvey's baby brother Marcus was nowhere to be found in the regret stained apology of a smile Eliot gave as his only reply. He turned to go, following Parker and Alec towards the back of the car that would ferry him to the airport and once more out of Harvey's life.

Eliot looked back over his shoulder as he walked away, and the look in his eyes was all the answer Harvey needed.

 _I'm sorry, Harvey_.

Harvey watched the car drive off, and it felt like a jagged hole had been ripped right through his chest. Dialing the familiar number with trembling, numb fingers, he held the phone up to his ear and waited for Donna's 'hello' from the other end.

“Please tell Jessica that I won't be in to work,” Harvey said in a voice that splintered and broke. “I'm... I'm taking a personal day.” 

> _And all my life, I've never known where you've been_
> 
> _There were holes in you, the kind that I could not mend_
> 
> _And I heard you say, right when you left that day_
> 
> “ _Does everything go away?”, yeah everything goes away_
> 
> _But I'm gonna be here til forever_
> 
> _So just call when you're around._


End file.
